The List: 14 Dec 2000 (Issue 403)

‘Be realistic: demand the impossible’, urged the Situationists in 1968. lhe Stottish Socialist Party may haxw approvi-d. More Lennon than Lenin, Imagine is titled after the beautiful haifal)|e song (delete according to VI“\.'.’). The iuthors should know, though, that the Working Class Hero could be scathing about the masses and was ambivalent about which side he was on; famously singing ’(ount me

Inch. 1‘ on» of the very best books I have ever read on the emblem of Seculzsm” mum

in’ on one vt-rsion of 'Revolution', ’t ount ttt“ out' on another:

A (oupls- more hugbt-ars too. there art- mistakes in the order of footnotes that publishers Rebel lnc should be ashamed of and, on a less pedanti< Hole, Sheridan has presumably never read Rosa Luxemburg's prophetit work (written from a German prison cell) if he thinks Uncle Joe and his (reed was alone responsible for poisoning the Russian Revolution. the (anter of totalitarianism was diagnosed by the first lady of the red flag as early as 191/.

For all this, /ni.igine is a fine polemic, in the tradition of Tony Benn’s Arguments for sot/".i/isni, mixing up bite—sized discourse and cheerful metaphor with the Marxist dialectic. The book claims, in a revolutionary nutshell, that glohal rapitalism is no longer geared towards the progress of society and must he (onsigned to the dustbin of history, like slavery,

More Lennon than Lenin

feudalism and Stalinism before it.

You may say that he’s a dreamer, but . . . when a recent report from Shelter says more people in Stotland are homeless than ever before, you don’t have to share Sheridan's vision of socialism to admire his passion for social justice. (Fvan Wilde)